Involuntary memory production during voluntary memory production: perceived usefulness, relevance, and intrusiveness

ABSTRACT

Research on involuntary autobiographical memories has shown that such memories are also experienced as byproducts of voluntarily produced autobiographical memories [Mace, 2006. Episodic remembering creates access to involuntary conscious memory: Demonstrating involuntary recall on a voluntary recall task. Memory, 14(8), 917–924]. This study examined perceptions of these memories with respect to their evoking voluntary memories. Participants were engaged in an autobiographical memory recall task, and asked to report on the experience of involuntary memories. They were asked to report if involuntary memories and evoking voluntary memories were related, from the same lifetime period, if the involuntary memories had utility and relevance for evoking memories, and if the involuntary memories were experienced as intrusive. The results showed that involuntary memories were related to evoking voluntary memories, frequently from the same lifetime period, and generally not experienced as intrusive. While mostly perceived as relevant to evoking memories, less than one-half of the involuntary memories were perceived as useful. The results raise questions about the functional nature of this type of involuntary remembering.

KEYWORDS:

• Involuntary autobiographical memories
• involuntary remembering
• voluntary remembering
• involuntary memory chains
• memory chains
• involuntary memory functions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We note that the general-event association designation does not imply that memories in this category are not also linked conceptually. This designation is meant to highlight that these memories are uniquely linked by the same larger event, a characteristic not found in the conceptual association designation. Conceptually associated memories appear to be joined by a general theme, and, while they often belong to the same lifetime period, this does not appear to be a requirement, as they can also span several decades (see Mace et al., 2013). It is for this reason they are called conceptual associations, because thematic overlap is the one property that appears to link them across a variety of situations (see similar views in Anderson & Bower, 1973; Barsalou, 1988; Bower, 1981; Schank, 1982). Participants and independent judges have been able to distinguish these memory types in empirical studies (e.g., Mace et al., 2010; Mace & Hall, 2018), and conceptual and general-event associated memories have been shown to dissociate from one another, displaying different retention characteristics (Mace et al., 2013; see review in Mace & Clevinger, 2019; as well as Barsalou, 1988; and Conway, 2005, for the seeds of this organisational approach).

2 The logic for removing general-event associated memories was straightforward. Because it is likely that general-event associated memories received higher scores on the basis of their membership in a general event, and not lifetime period membership, including them in this analysis would have erroneously skewed the outcome in favour of lifetime period membership. Thus, using only conceptual associated memories, should give an unbiased estimate of usefulness and relevance along the lifetime period continuum.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.